As we discussed in §REF , spots and highly curved interstripes are more common for CA simulations with above-average vertical domain growth. This may be related to the non-local cell behaviors present in the models [1]}, [2]}, [3]}: based on empirical findings [4]}, \(M\)  cells require signals from interstripe cells at long range for survival. Once stripe width is stretched too far by vertical domain growth in CA patterns, we would expect death of \(M\)  cells in the middle of the interstripe, followed by appearance of \(X^\text{d}\)  cells. One possibility is that L-iridophores, an additional cell type that appears later in stripe formation and is not included in the models [1]}, [3]}, may play a role in pattern maintenance, helping prevent wide stripes from breaking into spots [7]}, [1]}. As empirical data becomes available, better understanding the interplay of domain growth and pattern formation is an exciting direction for future work.
